How to Run in 3 Easy Steps

Are you…
a young wannabe athlete who doesn’t know how to run?
an adult who wants to start training for a race and need a plan?
someone who wants to begin running for exercise so they can get in shape or lose weight?

Regardless of your goals, I am so glad you found this article. I have coached runners for over 30 years. I’m a master’s degreed sports performance specialist and a level 2 coach with USA track and field. I have coached over a thousand runners and to date have coached 20 state champions. Along the way, I developed a method that has given me and my athletes great success. Now I’m going to teach you how to run too!

Let’s begin with the assumption you are starting from scratch and therefore have nothing wrong with your training or technique. I’m considering you a blank slate. It’s very exciting for me as a coach!

Years ago, I settled on an easy, 3-step method for teaching beginning runners. It is fundamental and should be included as a part of your warm up routine each time you run.

Step 1: Jumping Rope Without the Rope

The first step to learning how to run is to jump in place. Specifically, I want you to imagine you are jumping rope without the rope and the hand motions, just your legs. If done properly, you should be landing on the balls of your feet, rather than your heels or toes. Your ankles will be flexing and your heels might be coming down to lightly touch the ground, but not hard. Your knees are flexing a bit and so are your hip joints. Your spine should feel like it’s straight along with your neck and head. Basically, everything is lined up. You should tighten your core muscles slightly to keep everything in place. As you are doing this, I want you to notice how your feet and ankles are moving and the sensation of them as you hit the ground and spring up. This is exactly how they should behave and feel when you are running. If this is difficult for you, I suggest you take some more time (days or weeks) to build up the strength of these muscles by jumping each day. (To make it more interesting, you may want to use a jump rope.) Let’s face it, running can be hard on your body, so preparation is key. Jumping takes the force of gravity on your body as you strike the ground and shares it with both feet. When you run, you’re taking that same force and supporting it all on one leg. Try to build up your strength and endurance of these muscles before you advance to the next steps.

Step 2: Run In Place

Once you have mastered jumping up and down on both feet, it’s time to switch to alternating feet, aka running in place. Remember to use the same form as you did previously with two legged jumping, i.e. foot strike, body flexion and positioning, etc. You can refer back to step 1 for details, if needed. The only difference to note is that now you are transferring the weight from one leg to the other.

Now, let’s discuss how to move your legs and arms. Instead of trying to lift your knees as if marching, or letting them hinge behind you like the traditional butt kicking drill, you should lift your heels toward your butt from underneath. Raise your heels straight up to your butt just high enough to keep the rhythm going. You’ll notice that when you do this, you knees flex a bit and rise up, but not as much as a high knee drill. For your arms, you should let them swing back and forth as if hinged from your shoulders. Keep them relaxed.

In summary, take analysis of your body:

Foot strike against the ground
Springy ankle, knee and hips
Strong core locked into place
Head and neck in neutral position
Feel rising up towards your butt from underneath
Arms swing back and forth

If this is a challenge for you, I recommend that you work on this a little each day until you master it before advancing to the next step.

Step 3: Fall Forward

Once you have mastered running in place, it’s time for the final step, falling forward. Before you attempt this, I want to be clear that you won’t actually fall on your face! The proper technique is to gently fall forward ever so slightly from your toes, leading with your hips and chest. Don’t bend at the waist, as you need to keep your body properly aligned. You will only need to fall a few inches before you feel the tug of gravity pulling you forward and down.

If you’re like most runners I have taught, this will feel strange initially, as it is likely different from the way you have become accustomed to running. Believe it or not, this style is the way you were designed to run and probably the way you ran when you were a toddler running barefoot. The change in running style for most people as they have grown up is a conditioning from wearing shoes with padded heels. What I am teaching you today is actually easier on your feet and the whole body. The more you practice this, the more comfortable and natural it will feel.

What to Expect After Learning How to Run

It is very likely you will experience some muscle soreness in your lower legs with this new running style, because those muscles are not conditioned to this and lack strength. I have added exercises specific to help improve the strength of these muscles in my free Strength training for runners program.

Running Versus Sprinting

This running technique will be sufficient for most runners over most distances, but if you become more serious about sprinting, things change up a bit for you:

Sprinters run with a modified stride where they devote more emphasis on the knee lift (front side of the body) and decrease the length that their legs travel after hitting the ground and back toward their body (back side of the body).
Arm swing is bigger to compensate for the greater knee lift.

If you do decide to sprint rather than run longer distances, I recommend that you check out my article that explains running technique for sprinters.

Prerequisites to Learning How to Run

Regardless of your reasons for learning how to run, there are many things to consider. Because running is so tough on the body, I recommend having these four checkpoints in place before starting:

Stability
Mobility
Strength
Warm Up
A Good Diet

Think of them as the prerequisites of running. Without them, you won’t ever be a good runner, and you’ll likely get hurt. If one part of your body is not strong enough to support the stress of running, then other parts of your body have to absorb the impact. Since those body parts are now performing double work, they will eventually give out and you’ll be sidelined with an injury.

Stability

Do you have the strength to stand on two legs and also each leg while holding your body (skeletal system) in proper alignment? It takes a lot of strength in your core and hips. Ways you could check:

Can you hold a plank position for at least 30 seconds?
Can you lift one foot off the ground and continue to hold that plank?
How about switching to the other foot?

If so, you probably have good enough stability to proceed to the next checkpoint. If not, you’ll need to improve your core strength before running. You might try Pilates or a similar exercise routine that targets your core strength. I’d also suggest getting my free strength training program for runners.

Mobility

Once you establish that you have sufficient stability, you need to determine if you have proper mobility. Can you move your body and joints through a natural range of motion while still maintaining your stability? Can you maintain proper alignment even while moving? For example, stand upright and achieve what most people refer to as good posture. Now, tighten the muscles of your core and then swing your arms in a running motion. You should be able to do that without moving anything else in your body-no twisting of your trunk.

Once accomplished, you can add a marching motion with your legs. When done correctly, you should be standing in place while marching with your arms and legs. Take notice- is anything on your torso (core) moving, twisting bending? If so, can you tighten those muscles so that nothing in is moving except your arms and legs? Only then you have achieved mobility and can proceed. If not, you’ll need to start a functional strength training routine. I’d suggest getting my free strength training for runners program.

A lack of mobility is where the majority of amateur athletes fail. If you watch the average jogger or runner, there are all kinds of movement taking place on their bodies that shouldn’t be happening: twisting, bending, wobbling, etc. Now, watch a video of an Olympian or other top runner. Their torso and head does not move at all. They have stability, mobility and the next checkpoint: strength.

Strength

Once you have achieved stability and mobility, you need to make sure you have enough strength. Here is a test to see if you have enough strength to run:

From a kneeling position, place one foot forward and stand up without assistance. You should be able to do that 10 times with the same leg. Then, try the other leg. If you can’t, you should work to increase your strength before attempting to run. Whether you can or cannot, you should still be involved in a strength training program. There are many places to go and programs to try, but I recommend my free strength training program.

Warm up

I’m confident that you’ve already heard this somewhere before, but you should always warm up your body before running. Don’t make the mistake that most runners do and start stretching as a warm up. Stretching does nothing to warm you up and actually can lead to problems. If you want help with this, check out warm up for running.

A Good Diet

Running is hard on the body (have I said this already?) and takes a lot of energy. Because of this, it’s essential that your diet is sufficient to meet those demands. This article won’t dive into nutrition, but if you want more, check out my article on nutrition for running.

Things You’ll Need to Start Running

Running has pretty simple needs, but some of them are very important:

Running Shoes

There are lots of thoughts and types of running shoes on the market, but in general, I lean towards a show that allows you to run with the form I have described in this article (landing on your forefoot rather than you heels). This means that you’ll need a shoe that doesn’t have a big heel build up. I typically tell my runners to go to a running store and tell the expert there that you want a shoe that accommodates a forefoot strike. They will show you plenty of options.

Gear

Running gear is another way of saying clothes. Knowing what clothes to wear is really based on the weather. If it’s warm outside, shorts and a t-shirt will suffice. My standard rule for my athletes is that they must have their skin covered if the temperature is below 50 degrees. In that case, tights or warm ups are a good choice. A beanie cap and light gloves can be helpful when it’s even colder. You may need to discard them along the way if you start to overheat, so make sure you have a way of hanging on to them if that happens.

Water

Having drinking water at the ready is a must for running because as you sweat, you need to replace that water in your body. Water is necessary for many bodily functions, and a must for being able to continue running at a good level. If your run is going to be more than 20-30 minutes, I recommend having a bottle of water with you.

Now That You’re Ready to Run

I highly recommend that you build into your running very slowly. I’ve seen many an overzealous runner do too much too soon and regret it for days after. At some point, I’ll write a program to take a totally new runner from ground zero to in shape, but in the meantime, you can check out other ways to get my coaching help .

How to Run Faster

Once you have developed a running routine, you may want to work on increasing your speed. Make sure to check out my article on how to run faster.

A Running Training Plan

Now that you know how to run, what’s your plan? It’s always better to have a solid training plan rather than just running whatever length and speed feels good at the moment. You’ll make more progress and have a better chance of avoiding injury if you have a good plan. Check out the ways I can help with coaching. In the meantime, I can give these recommendations for beginners:

Start with only 3 days per week
Depending on your fitness level, you can start with about 5-20 minutes of continuous running each workout.
After you’ve done this for 2-3 weeks and you don’t have any more soreness, increase your time by 5-10 minutes.
You can continue this pattern until you get to the running distance that is your goal. It can get more complicated than that if your running times edge toward 1 hour or more, so I recommend checking with me if you get to that point.
If you want to add more days, I suggest that you only add one at a time and that those days are 50-70% of the distance of the longer days. Also, if adding days, refrain from adding distance at the same time. Never add distance and frequency at the same time as it can be too much for your body.
Always do one workout for 2-3 weeks until your body adjusts before increasing distance or number of training days.

Conclusion

I hope this article was helpful. I tried to give an easy, step-by-step approach to learning how to run, as well as lots of tips to help you have success on your journey. As mentioned above, I have other coaching tools to help you if you’d like more of my help. I’d love to help you! Leave a comment of question below and I will reply as quickly as possible.